Remember Pearl Harbor

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Although to be honest, even if the flat-tops had been in Pearl, it's questionable how much priority would have been placed on them over the battleships by the Japanese Naval Command, since at that time it was believed that any major battle between the USN and IJN would be between battleships and the carrier and aircraft would play a secondary supportive role.

An excellent point. Despite the British attack on Taranto the previous year, it was still assumed by both sides that battleships were the ultimate seagoing war machine, and seaborne aircraft were just a side show. It was Pearl Harbor that made the first step toward disproving that belief, so you could very well be right that the carriers may have been a low priority anyway.

On the other hand I've never studied the actual Japanese battle plan, so those documents may say otherwise.